A Sewing & Knitting Blog, Made in Birmingham, England

Adventure Tanks & Ilsley Skirt in France

Back in September, Phil and I spent a short week visiting Paris. We visit once a year (we stay in a caravan park in Maisons-Lafitte, so it’s quite a cheap break), and we always try to do a day trip outside Paris. This year we visited Chantilly – in particular, the Château de Chantilly.

From the train station, Château de Chantilly is walking distance through a wood and park. The Chateau is stunning, and also enormous, so try and arrive early.

This Adventure Tank is the Muscle Tank version graded between an XS and S. The Ilsley Skirt is Size 2. I was super lazy and didn’t hem the skirt or top since the scuba fabric won’t fray, however I may go back and hem them as I think they will last better hemmed.

Phil bought me a Creativebug subscription for my birthday last year, so I got access to the Adventure Tank pattern as part of my subscription. The Fancy Tiger Crafts Creativebug lessons are some of my favourites, they’ve just released a class for a cute new clutch pattern which I’m planning to make soon.

I also whipped up another Adventure Tank, using a small remnant of knit fabric from the stash table at The Sewing Weekender. This is pictured below, also with my Ilsley Skirt, at a different chateau – The Château de Maisons, in Maisons-Laffitte.

Despite having stayed in Maisons-Laffitte annually for the last four or so years, we’ve never yet visited the Chateau. It closes daily for lunch, and we’re normally too slow getting up in the morning to visit before lunch, then off visiting Paris in the afternoon. This year we made an effort to get up and dressed and visit the chateau one morning, before it closed for lunch.

We were the only visitors to the Chateau on the morning we visited – they had to unlock the door to let us in when we arrived! It was very nice to have the whole Chateau to ourselves, and gave us chance to get these photos of my simple outfit in a grand setting.

Beautiful – I do miss being able to take out of season breaks. Love the idea of the matching top and skirt – they look lovely together. How thick is your scuba, I’ve not seen it used much for tops? What I can’t understand is how there isn’t anyone else in the pictures – is there no-one else visiting Chantilly – it looks like you had the place completely to yourselves?